My mom and dad are seriously into genealogy. There are times when this has been a bit of a drag - usually when family vacation times would come around as kids and, inevitably, it would involve one or more stops at 1) little, rural libraries and/or county courthouses where mom and dad would spend hours looking at books that no one else in the universe had ever perused and 2) graveyards that are in the back 40 of someone's personal property and only accessible by hikes through swamps, woods, marshes, or some combination thereof. The only thing that tended to make the latter interseting was trying to figure out what creature was going to bite mom and make her miserable for the rest of the trip. Would it be chiggers again? Or fire ants this time? Or perhaps just the plain 'ol mosquito?
However, by and large, it's interesting. It's about the only way I find history to be bearable, to hear it in context of people who we're either related to or directly descended from. And there's some neat stuff in my background, on both sides of my family. But today I'm focusing on my mom's side of things because, as she puts it, on her side of the family we're about 90% Scot.
Today's ancestor for consideration is John Witherspoon. I've always been pleased to know that I was related to a signer of the Declaration of Independence. I just think that's cool. He's not a direct ancestor, unfortunately, but I'm directly descended from his aunt, which is pretty close in the overall scheme of things. (Or at least I think it's pretty close. I mean cousins is good, right?) There's another neat biography of him here and an even longer one here.
The other wonder I've often had (as had mom) is if we're distantly related to Reese Witherspoon - because Reese is another family name on mom's side that married into the same Witherspoons we're descended from.
But that's not really got anything to do with Scotland.
8 hours ago
Yeah, cousins is good! Wow, the only minister to sign the Declaration. How cool is that?! I have a pastor friend here who does Civil War re-enactments and John Witherspoon is his character.
ReplyDeleteThe whole Reese Witherspoon thing though...funny. :-)
It'd be cool though, don't you think? (I like her a lot - so far she either seems adept at hiding her typical hollyweirdness OR (my hope) she's actually managed to somehow be a good person/wife/mom despite her success.)
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, it's cool. I've got another goodie for either tomorrow or Thursday. :)
Genealogy is interesting when you hear about the stories. My great-great-great grandma hid her babies under a wash tub during an Indian attack. The babies survived--she didn't. :( Kind of sad, really, but I'm glad she had the foresight to think of it!
ReplyDeleteMakes me wonder who found them and raised them?
That's a neat story Michelle (though I'm with you, be much cooler if she'd survived.) We have some boys who were kidnapped by Indians (in Texas) and there was a book written about it and so forth, but the name is escaping me. The Western expansion stories are always really interesting - so much better than the dry way it's presented in history class (though I'm sure you make it interesting. I just can't get past the boringness of the 2 history teachers I had in HS.) :)
ReplyDeleteare you related to Robert Patillo? so am i
ReplyDelete